half-way point already!

It’s so hard to believe that we are half-way through project already! I can still remember the first days of project when we were finalizing the schools we were to train and making the final edits to our curriculum. Now, after completing our training at three schools, we have put all notions of nervousness behind us and are eagerly awaiting the first day of teaching at our forth school while at the same time wishing time would stand still so that project would never have to come to an end.

This past week was full of great experiences. The school we were at, Mawe Secondary School, was full of exceptionally enthusiastic and energetic students. At our closing ceremony they literally would not let us leave! After Ng’ok and I gave the closing speeches the students started chanting for Ibra to come and say something. After Ibra gave a small speech and fired the students up with his psyc game, Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriap!, the students started chanting for Bryan to come and say something to them. This pattern would have no doubt continued until every single trainer gave a speech if it wasn’t for Ng’ok needing to wrap up because it was getting late. We ended the ceremony with the students promising that they would continue passing on the knowledge that they had gained from our training to their friends from other schools and to members of their communities. I cannot describe in words how amazing it was to feel the students’ energy and passion for the YESS program. It makes all of the hard work YESS and QHO have put into this project well worth it and tells us how effective the training is at empowering students to become peer educators in their own communities.

Yesterday marked the pinnacle of this year’s project. We organized a HIV testing day for students from our first two schools, Lake Solai and Seet Kobor. These schools are located very far away from VCT centers (Voluntary Counseling and Testing centers) where one would go if he or she wanted to get tested and counseled for HIV. We operated our own VCT’s out of a health center in the Lake Solai community and out of Seet Kobor high school with three VCT counselors at each location. When we arrived in the morning to set up we were amazed to see that many of our students were already there waiting to get tested! As the day progressed, it was even more amazing to see many members of the surrounding communities come to get tested after only hearing about the testing day via word-of-mouth.

We ended up testing approximately 233 students and community members yesterday. To put this in perspective, last year at our final HIV testing day encompassing four secondary schools and community members, we tested a total of 168 people (which was a significant increase from the previous year’s testing day in 2007).

With half the target test group, half the resources and less than half the counselors, significantly more people were able to learn their HIV status and use this information to positively and productively continue to plan their lives. This shows how much YESS continues to grow as an organization in Kenya each year as a result of the hard work and dedication of every member of the YESS and QHO team, past and present. I cannot wait to see how our next testing day will turn out!

Nicole